Nicholas Pullen
@najpullen.bsky.social
Author of The Black Hunger, a queer gothic historical horror novel, out now on Orbit Books. Sometime historian, campfire guitarist, wreck diver pining for the Great Lake They Call Gitchee Gummee. Gay Yukoner. (He/Him)
I was today years old when I found out Nick Drake’s mom was also a brilliant songwriter who only ever played her elegiac, Noel Coward piano ballads for family and friends and also clearly influenced her son’s entire vibe. This melted my face.
open.spotify.com/track/1cNXn9...
open.spotify.com/track/1cNXn9...
I Remember
open.spotify.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:15 PM
I was today years old when I found out Nick Drake’s mom was also a brilliant songwriter who only ever played her elegiac, Noel Coward piano ballads for family and friends and also clearly influenced her son’s entire vibe. This melted my face.
open.spotify.com/track/1cNXn9...
open.spotify.com/track/1cNXn9...
College choir: Angelic, majestic, sublime. Full of classically trained singers. Product of centuries of musical scholarship. Based.
College a capella group: Leering, saccharine, twee. Full of sex pests. Product of decades of badly repressed frat boy homoeroticism. Cringe.
College a capella group: Leering, saccharine, twee. Full of sex pests. Product of decades of badly repressed frat boy homoeroticism. Cringe.
November 26, 2025 at 6:00 AM
College choir: Angelic, majestic, sublime. Full of classically trained singers. Product of centuries of musical scholarship. Based.
College a capella group: Leering, saccharine, twee. Full of sex pests. Product of decades of badly repressed frat boy homoeroticism. Cringe.
College a capella group: Leering, saccharine, twee. Full of sex pests. Product of decades of badly repressed frat boy homoeroticism. Cringe.
People talk about the courage it takes to sit down in front of a blank screen and it’s real but it takes an unflinching resolve to die for the Emperor to sit down in front of an unholy mess you wrote a year ago and say “I will make this good somehow”
November 9, 2025 at 7:00 PM
People talk about the courage it takes to sit down in front of a blank screen and it’s real but it takes an unflinching resolve to die for the Emperor to sit down in front of an unholy mess you wrote a year ago and say “I will make this good somehow”
If you want to reliably nerdsnipe me all you need to do is impugn the honour of Josephine Bonaparte I will rant for hours
October 26, 2025 at 5:51 PM
If you want to reliably nerdsnipe me all you need to do is impugn the honour of Josephine Bonaparte I will rant for hours
The stories we all grew up with are inadequate to our cultural moment of crisis and collapse. Death to #LotR. Death to #StarWars. Death to #HarryPotter. Death to #Marvel, #DC, and all the other shibboleths of our decaying culture. We need something new… substack.com/home/post/p-...
On Happy Endings
George RR Martin, Tolkien, and the failure of our old stories...
substack.com
October 15, 2025 at 5:57 PM
The stories we all grew up with are inadequate to our cultural moment of crisis and collapse. Death to #LotR. Death to #StarWars. Death to #HarryPotter. Death to #Marvel, #DC, and all the other shibboleths of our decaying culture. We need something new… substack.com/home/post/p-...
Is Caramelldansen one of the top 5 most extra songs of all time? Or just in the top 20?
October 13, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Is Caramelldansen one of the top 5 most extra songs of all time? Or just in the top 20?
Reposted by Nicholas Pullen
October is here, so get your goth on and join us for a collection of tales of terror from previous episodes! Featuring the work of @najpullen.bsky.social, @markbrandon.bsky.social, @rjbarker.bsky.social, and the terrible twosome Ben and Nico. Listen here:
pod.link/1524142040/e...
#Spooky #Horror
pod.link/1524142040/e...
#Spooky #Horror
October 6, 2025 at 9:26 AM
October is here, so get your goth on and join us for a collection of tales of terror from previous episodes! Featuring the work of @najpullen.bsky.social, @markbrandon.bsky.social, @rjbarker.bsky.social, and the terrible twosome Ben and Nico. Listen here:
pod.link/1524142040/e...
#Spooky #Horror
pod.link/1524142040/e...
#Spooky #Horror
“I imagined life taking me all sorts of places. I never anticipated watching the winter sun rise near noon over the Yukon River from the secure ward of the Whitehorse General Hospital.”
I wrote this in January after a psychiatric catastrophe. I hope it helps...
open.substack.com/pub/nicholas...
I wrote this in January after a psychiatric catastrophe. I hope it helps...
open.substack.com/pub/nicholas...
September 21, 2025 at 8:20 PM
“I imagined life taking me all sorts of places. I never anticipated watching the winter sun rise near noon over the Yukon River from the secure ward of the Whitehorse General Hospital.”
I wrote this in January after a psychiatric catastrophe. I hope it helps...
open.substack.com/pub/nicholas...
I wrote this in January after a psychiatric catastrophe. I hope it helps...
open.substack.com/pub/nicholas...
Many complex emotions announcing that @cormorantbooks.bsky.social will be publishing Famous Blue. It's more 'literary' than my horror work, if that means anything, but I'm proud it's slouching slowly out into the world. Thank you to Natasha Mihell at @therightsfactory.bsky.social for all you did ❤️
September 8, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Many complex emotions announcing that @cormorantbooks.bsky.social will be publishing Famous Blue. It's more 'literary' than my horror work, if that means anything, but I'm proud it's slouching slowly out into the world. Thank you to Natasha Mihell at @therightsfactory.bsky.social for all you did ❤️
Soft launching a substack. This is a short story I wrote last year for @tinybookcase.bsky.social with @benholroyddell.bsky.social and @nicorogers.bsky.social, writing to the prompt ‘Patrol.‘ You can find our whole conversation in Episode 186. Had a lovely time substack.com/home/post/p-... #horror
The Old Crow Incident
A Short Story...
substack.com
September 8, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Soft launching a substack. This is a short story I wrote last year for @tinybookcase.bsky.social with @benholroyddell.bsky.social and @nicorogers.bsky.social, writing to the prompt ‘Patrol.‘ You can find our whole conversation in Episode 186. Had a lovely time substack.com/home/post/p-... #horror
You can tell if a musician has any contemporary relevance because if they don't their Spotify bio will be a cross between a PhD thesis, a hagiography and a tombstone, and if they are it'll be some version of no broke loosers beep boop beep boop just here for vibes and n00ds of ur mom xoxoxo one love
August 15, 2025 at 9:54 PM
You can tell if a musician has any contemporary relevance because if they don't their Spotify bio will be a cross between a PhD thesis, a hagiography and a tombstone, and if they are it'll be some version of no broke loosers beep boop beep boop just here for vibes and n00ds of ur mom xoxoxo one love
Don't generally share reviews but thoroughly enjoyed this one from an old friend. Very insightful, very demure, very mindful substack.com/home/post/p-...
"The Black Hunger" Gives Empire a Bitter Taste
“I do not have long now.
substack.com
August 15, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Don't generally share reviews but thoroughly enjoyed this one from an old friend. Very insightful, very demure, very mindful substack.com/home/post/p-...
Opening with a quote from Revelations is a bad sign. It will never not be a bad sign. Revelations itself contains nothing but bad signs. It is itself a ur-bad sign, a meta-bad sign. Absolutely nothing good will ever follow a quote from Revelations, except perhaps The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash
August 8, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Opening with a quote from Revelations is a bad sign. It will never not be a bad sign. Revelations itself contains nothing but bad signs. It is itself a ur-bad sign, a meta-bad sign. Absolutely nothing good will ever follow a quote from Revelations, except perhaps The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash
Finally watching The Last of Us. So far our hands down favorite characters are the structurally unbothered Indigenous couple they meet in Wyoming. Unbothered they were before the apocalypse, unbothered they doubtless were during, unbothered they remain, and will remain until the end of all bothering
August 8, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Finally watching The Last of Us. So far our hands down favorite characters are the structurally unbothered Indigenous couple they meet in Wyoming. Unbothered they were before the apocalypse, unbothered they doubtless were during, unbothered they remain, and will remain until the end of all bothering
You know they’re an English trad folk outfit because their name sounds like a Victorian ship chandler’s partnership and all of their songs are celebrating jobs they’d be fired from in less than twenty minutes
August 3, 2025 at 5:44 PM
You know they’re an English trad folk outfit because their name sounds like a Victorian ship chandler’s partnership and all of their songs are celebrating jobs they’d be fired from in less than twenty minutes
If it has multiple volumes and a table of contents, that’s not a birthday book. That’s a dossier…
July 25, 2025 at 5:27 AM
If it has multiple volumes and a table of contents, that’s not a birthday book. That’s a dossier…
Oh man, just flashed back to the entire concept of the hipster, remember when we thought that mattered?
July 12, 2025 at 4:43 AM
Oh man, just flashed back to the entire concept of the hipster, remember when we thought that mattered?
Social media could only have been conceived, let alone used, by a society that has never known true repression. Imagine offering Soviet Bloc citizens free use of a keyword searchable permanent record of every random thought that's ever entered their heads? Nope, they'd say. Hard pass. Unsubscribe.
July 9, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Social media could only have been conceived, let alone used, by a society that has never known true repression. Imagine offering Soviet Bloc citizens free use of a keyword searchable permanent record of every random thought that's ever entered their heads? Nope, they'd say. Hard pass. Unsubscribe.
It's an odd thought to have under the circumstances, but just to be sure we're all on the same page, b/c it occurred to me tonight watching #ThePhoenicianScheme seeing no one else laughing...
...ALL of Wes Anderson's movies, without exception, are screwball comedies...right?
There is consensus?
...ALL of Wes Anderson's movies, without exception, are screwball comedies...right?
There is consensus?
June 25, 2025 at 6:02 AM
It's an odd thought to have under the circumstances, but just to be sure we're all on the same page, b/c it occurred to me tonight watching #ThePhoenicianScheme seeing no one else laughing...
...ALL of Wes Anderson's movies, without exception, are screwball comedies...right?
There is consensus?
...ALL of Wes Anderson's movies, without exception, are screwball comedies...right?
There is consensus?
"Calm down man don't be hysterical they're not coming for you they're coming for the immigrants and the transes"
"Are you saying this to reassure me? Am I supposed to be excited about this?"
"No, but...you know what I mean"
"It seems I do, yeah"
"Are you saying this to reassure me? Am I supposed to be excited about this?"
"No, but...you know what I mean"
"It seems I do, yeah"
June 24, 2025 at 6:54 AM
"Calm down man don't be hysterical they're not coming for you they're coming for the immigrants and the transes"
"Are you saying this to reassure me? Am I supposed to be excited about this?"
"No, but...you know what I mean"
"It seems I do, yeah"
"Are you saying this to reassure me? Am I supposed to be excited about this?"
"No, but...you know what I mean"
"It seems I do, yeah"
It figures an HRE candidate was going to win this year what with the War of the League of Cambrai. Pastyme With Gud Cumpanye was objectively a banger and the cloth of gold uniforms were fabulous but it doesn't matter everybody hates England so ZERO POINTS
www.reddit.com/r/mapporncir...
www.reddit.com/r/mapporncir...
From the mapporncirclejerk community on Reddit: How long would Eurovision last back in 15th century
Explore this post and more from the mapporncirclejerk community
www.reddit.com
June 23, 2025 at 10:04 PM
It figures an HRE candidate was going to win this year what with the War of the League of Cambrai. Pastyme With Gud Cumpanye was objectively a banger and the cloth of gold uniforms were fabulous but it doesn't matter everybody hates England so ZERO POINTS
www.reddit.com/r/mapporncir...
www.reddit.com/r/mapporncir...
Intellectually I can understand that men had motives to fight before nationalism, the French Revolution, and the Levée en masse, but I'll never understand it emotionally
June 23, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Intellectually I can understand that men had motives to fight before nationalism, the French Revolution, and the Levée en masse, but I'll never understand it emotionally
This aged well enough
Yes, Elon Musk and Donald Trump will fall out at some point. But the far more interesting question to me at that point is which of them will actually win when they do? 🧵
June 6, 2025 at 3:27 PM
This aged well enough
In what circle of hell is the first thing I learn about the new Pope that he once sent an admonishing tweet to JD Vance?
May 8, 2025 at 6:12 PM
In what circle of hell is the first thing I learn about the new Pope that he once sent an admonishing tweet to JD Vance?
I firmly maintain that the Pierce Brosnan Bonds are the gayest Bonds and the fact that they’re so homoerotic and camp is why they’re the best of the crop Alexa send tweet mute replies
May 7, 2025 at 8:12 PM
I firmly maintain that the Pierce Brosnan Bonds are the gayest Bonds and the fact that they’re so homoerotic and camp is why they’re the best of the crop Alexa send tweet mute replies